Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/229

Rh Whence I to him: "If thou wouldst have me help thee,

Say who thou wast; and if I free thee not,

May I go to the bottom of the ice."

Then he replied: "I am Friar Alberigo;

He am I of the fruit of the bad garden,

Who here a date am getting for my fig."

"O," said I to him, "now art thou, too, dead?"

And he to me: "How may my body fare

Up in the world, no knowledge I possess.

Such an advantage has this Ptolomæa,

That oftentimes the soul descendeth here

Sooner than Atropos in motion sets it.

And, that thou mayest more willingly remove

From off my countenance these glassy tears.

Know that as soon as any soul betrays

As I have done, his body by a demon

Is taken from him, who thereafter rules it,

Until his time has wholly been revolved.

Itself down rushes into such a cistern;

And still perchance above appears the body

Of yonder shade, that winters here behind me.

This thou shouldst know, if thou hast just come down;

It is Ser Branca d' Oria, and many years

Have passed away since he was thus locked up.